Watermarking and Copyrighting Your Photographs

There is a danger factor in publishing your images
online.Whether you are being published
professionally or just putting pictures up on your personal blog, there is
always the chance of theft or copyright infringement.Take it from me: it is a huge violation of
privacy, trust and feels like a dirty prank is being pulled on you by the
internet itself.It's a great way to
ruin the day.But you are in luck,
faithful Steve's Digicams reader.There
are ways to prevent copyright infringement and dissuade jerks from ripping off
your photographs.

What is watermarking
and copyrighting?

A watermark is a visible image imprinted or embossed
directly onto the paper or digitally added onto an image later.It would be your name, your company logo, the
company name, the copyright symbol or nearly anything that marks that image as
belonging to you.Some are extremely
obvious while others are hidden (much to the chagrin of a thief under
fire).Watermarks are used on nearly
every paper source; banknotes, passports, easy to purchase reams of paper
(remember that episode of "The Office" where someone watermarked the paper with
an "obscene image"), digitally created images and photographs.Watermarking is an ancient practice, dating
back to 13th century Italy.As soon as papermaking started, watermarking became necessary.Cartiere Miliani in
Fabriano is credited with the earliest watermark dating 1282.But funny enough, things have not changed
much over the past seven and a half centuries.People are still protecting their paper and their work using simple
watermarks.

Copyrighting is a more in-depth way to protect your work.According to the United States Copyright
Office website, it is
the "protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of
'original works of authorship'...This protection is available to both published
and unpublished works...the 1976 Copyright Act generally gives the owner of
copyright the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to do the
following:

to reproduce the work in copies...

to prepare derivative works based upon the work...

to distribute copies or phoorecords of the work to the
public by sale or other transfer of ownership...

to display the work publicly..."

Essentially, if you took the picture and want to copyright
it, you control what happens with that image as long as you own the copyright.

Why would someone use
a watermark or copyright their images?

Is your work available to the public?Can someone see your pictures?Are your images uploaded to a photo hosting
website?Do you have a blog that you
post photos to?Do you share your work
digitally?Do you get paid for your
work?Do you not get paid for your
work?Are you using your photographs in
this year's Christmas card?

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you need
to use a watermark or copyright your work.

How do I copyright or
watermark my work?

To copyright your photo, you can go about it two ways: the
lazy, free way or the legal way.According to the Berne
Convention (which I recommend reading so you better understand what it
really covers and how it legally protects you), as soon as you press down the
shutter on your camera you own the
image that creates.The copyright is
automatic and instantly yours.You own
the copyright of that photograph for a minimum of 25 years (duration of
copyright depends on the medium).It
does also state that people can use your work as long as they credit you with
it.The Berne Convention does not ensure
you will get paid every time someone else uses your photo.It does not clarify how you are to prove that
the photo, if it were to come into question, would be proven as yours.

Going through the U.S. Copyright Office is the legal way of
copyrighting your work.Legally
copyrighting your photographs protects you on all levels.To copyright your work, there is a
convoluted, sometimes necessary process that can get expensive and
lengthy.You have to go through the U.S. Copyright Office and register your work
either online or on paper (the
website offers a PDF file
for you to download, fill out and mail in).Registering online is much more streamlined, less cumbersome, goes much
quicker and provides you with a status tracker, much like shipping and tracking
a UPS package.It is also cheaper to
file online running you only $35 versus $50 to do it on paper.You can register a single image or an entire
body of published work (Form GR/Pph/CON is
needed for a group of published works).Going through the Copyright Office is for those who sell their work to
distributed publications.If in fact
someone were to steal or abuse an image, you have the Copyright Office and the
power of the United States government on your side.

In terms of protection, think of it this way: if someone
were to steal your image, the Berne Convention is your angry dad while the
Copyright Office is the mafia.

Watermarking your photographs can be done a number of
ways.The most popular route is to create
and add a watermark through Photoshop.There
are plenty of tutorials
online that explain how to create and apply watermarks to a single or batch of
photos.Paint Shop Pro also makes it
easy to add a watermark; here
is a good explanation of how to go about doing so.If you don't own either one of those
programs, there are plenty of resources available online to help you in
watermarking your work.

Picmarkr is a
user friendly watermarking program that is offered free online.They allow you to upload a picture from your
computer, Facebook, Flickr or Picasa accounts.You have the option to resize your photo or leave it as is.From there, you have your choice of Text or
Custom Logo/Image showing up once in a designated area or tiled across the
whole image.You can choose between
black or white text by itself or set on a 40% opaque line that can either fit
just behind the text or along the entire image.Once you have designed your watermark, you apply it to the image and
save it to any of the aforementioned accounts or back onto your computer.You don't get to chose text size, so in a
large image the watermark gets easily lost.Below is an image watermarked with Picmarkr.

Watermark-Images
is an easy to use free online program that allows for more control than
Picmarkr.You can upload twenty pictures
at once allowing for batch watermarking.You customize the watermark text; there is no option to watermark with
an image or logo.You then chose the
font type, the font size, color and transparency.The tricky part is choosing the position of
the watermark.To place the image in the
upper left hand corner, then chose 10% for both fields; tweak it from there.You can rotate the text, apply shadow and
surround the text with a box.In the
image below, the watermark is set at 70% from the left and 90% from the top;
45pt Impact font in black at 25% transparency in solid; no special effects and
now box around the text.

Alamoon
Watermark is a free downloadable program that does single and batch
watermarking; you must purchase Alamoon Pro for $29.95 in order to batch
watermark but the free version works just fine for one time watermarking.(I downloaded, virus scanned and used this
program and can vouch for its legitimacy and the fact that it is virus free.)Before you even download the program, make
sure you make copies of the photos you will be watermarking.As with Watermark-Images, you only have the
option to watermark with text, no logo or image.Select the font you want; Alamoon is unique
in that you can choose from any type face on your computer versus 6 or 7 select
fonts from the program.You can either
choose between predetermined positions or program it in with percentages
(exactly like Watermark-Images).Alamoon
will attach a watermark to the file you upload and not ask you to make a copy
so when the option to save the file to a new folder arises, do so.Give it a new name and everything to prevent
watermarking your original file (which I very nearly did to one of my favorite
photos).You can save the file as a
JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, PCX, TGA or TIFF.The
option to resize the photo is also available.Below is an example of Alamoon's watermarking.

If you don't get a sense of relief and security from
watermarking or copyrighting your photos, let the internet help fight the
copyright battle.The super sleuth TinEye program, a.k.a. your new best friend,
will scour the internet looking for digital copies of your image.You can search by either uploading the file
straight from your hard drive or using the image's URL address.It is a tense wait while the TinEye searches
for copies, but you will be happy to know the results, one way or the other.

Maggie O'Briant recently graduated from Florida State University with an English Literature degree. She is currently a freelance writer and photographer. She currently lives in Hawaii with her husband and giant baby.